


Karkat: You Wake Up

by BlameMyMuses



Series: Apotheosis [3]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-08
Updated: 2016-06-08
Packaged: 2018-07-13 01:29:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7132589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlameMyMuses/pseuds/BlameMyMuses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It takes a while to remember who he is; it might have been easier if he'd just never remembered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Karkat: You Wake Up

You wake up.

 

Everything is burning, smoke and ash and dust in your lungs.

 

Everything hurts.

 

You pass out.

 

***

 

You wake up again.

 

Your heartbeat is loud in your ears, a steady pulse, calm—calmer by far than you actually feel.

 

Where are you?

 

_ Who  _ are you?

 

There is a beep and chime of machinery. You breathe in and the air is too cool, too damp.

 

You go under again.

 

It is not your choice.

 

***

 

You are filled with a rage you can’t describe and it bubbles up like blood in your teeth and you’re SCREAMING AND CRYING AND NOTHING IS RIGHT IN THIS WORLD AND YOU CAN FEEL IT BURNING LIKE MAGMA AND YOU’RE DROWNING IN IT—!

 

Something strikes you across the face, and you taste copper and souls.

 

You can’t remember how you got here. You can’t remember where you were before.

 

You think you used to have a name.

 

You  _ know  _ that, once upon a time, you were a knight.

 

***

 

You are calmer the next time you wake up, but still angry. So damn angry. You’re still working out how words work, how to form them with lips and tongue and teeth that are unfamiliar and alien…but there are people all around you, within you, hurting you, so you are slow to learn. You’ll get there eventually.

 

You are incoherent, drugged, and all you are left with is a blurry impression of colors. All the ones outside of you wear blue. The ones inside wear scarlet.

 

Someone comes within biting distance, and you snarl and claw, but it’s futile. They have your hands chained down and for the beat of an instant you think the bonds are glowing cherry red.

 

You are not calm any more. Not at all.

 

***

 

They make you stand in the center of all these damn circles. They chain you there, feet to the floor, arms straining, bound over your head. It never fails to make your heart hammer, your breath come short, but you don’t know why. You can’t remember.

 

There is so much you can’t remember.

 

But the circles look like fraymotifs. You don’t even know what that means, but you know that’s what they remind you of. And they use you to make things happen. Every time one of the motifs activates, your whole being pulses. Some of the hazy confusion fades away, and you almost know…

 

You  _ almost  _ know  _ so much _ .

 

They want something from you, and you aren’t sure what it is, but the clarity begins to stay even after the rush is gone and they’ve taken you back to your cell, so you stay quiet. Staying quiet is the hardest thing you’ve ever done, you think. You try to relax into the memories, but you aren’t any good at relaxing, apparently.

 

(you really desperately want someone who will stroke your hair, rub gentle circles on your back, smooth the worry lines from your forehead with soft hands, make soothing sounds at you, and you don’t know where you’d ever have experienced such a thing before but it is all tied up  _ somehow  _ in the things you can’t remember)

 

You are drained and achy when they free your arms from the shackles, and take you back to your cell, one in a long line, and all the rest are empty. They have you in your own hallway, away from all unauthorized eyes. You get the feeling that you are the greatest secret the people in blue have.

 

***

 

It takes several months. You don’t know  _ exactly  _ how long, because even after you remembered the taste of language (several of them, in fact, though you don’t know how it’s possible) you don’t let on. You play dumb, play stupid, play feral. You let them think you’re too animal to understand shit, and they relax their guard. So you learn things, but don’t ask how long you’ve been here, just make an educated guess.

 

It takes several months, but eventually you remember your name.

 

***

 

Your name is Karkat Vantas. You come from another world, a world that you destroyed in a spectacularly epic clusterfuck of idiocy, and you have come to the conclusion that if  _ you’re  _ here, then surely your friends must be as well.

 

You’re going to break the fuck out of this prison and find them.

 

But first…

 

… first you’re going make these asshats regret ever having touched you. Are you or are you not a fucking god?

 

For the first time since you woke up, you laugh. Around the perimeter of the motif, the array, the men and women in the blue uniforms look unnerved. Someone edges out of the room.

 

Your blood is pulsing in your ears. You know too much now, about how these arrays work, and how to change them. You’re standing on the main grounding line, and if you just…

 

The floor buckles. Overhead, the tight cuffs around your wrists break and shift form until they are dear and familiar and deadly.

 

Scythe in each hand and laughing, free from your chains at last...

 

You wake up.


End file.
